


Gravity of You

by devilsalwayscry



Series: Post-DMCV Fix It Fics [4]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bad Jokes, Biting, Blood, Bottom Dante (Devil May Cry), Fluff and Angst, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Post-Canon, Top Vergil (Devil May Cry), Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-08 00:19:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18884281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilsalwayscry/pseuds/devilsalwayscry
Summary: Dante and Vergil begin confronting the confusing things that have changed between them and attempt to discover what "normal" will look like going forward.(Dante third-person POV, post-DMCV, somewhat follows all other fics in this series but, as usual, could stand alone. Edit: Now with chapter 2, featuring best friend emotional party time and shameless smut!)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Almost a month later and I'm still in D/V hell and all I want is for them to be sweet and gentle and work through all their hang ups and angst together.
> 
> This part was getting out of control length-wise so I'm splitting it into two chapters. The explicit rating is for part two--tags to be added for that when I post it.
> 
> Comments and kudos give me life, thank you all so far for the love. <3

That night, Dante dreams of V, calling after him as he charges forward toward Urizen, toward their inevitable destiny, V’s voice soft and quickly fading. The sound of desperation in it as he’d called out— _ Dante, wait _ —that Dante had chosen to ignore at the time reverberates through his skull, echoes down through his bones and settles in, replaying on loop in his mind.  _ Just got to get there and end this and everything will be fine _ , Dante had thought, even as V had started to crumble into dust before his eyes, as the last traces of his brother's demonic power had seeped away and left his body failing.

In his dream, he turns around and he reaches for him, fingers tightening on his wrist. It comes apart in his palm, silky smooth and fine like ash, and all he can see is V's face—Vergil's face, full of desperate, frantic fear as he collapses into dust in Dante’s arms.

Dante jerks awake with a gasp of breath and a jolt, his heart pounding in his chest. He's drenched in sweat and tangled in the sheets of his bed and he flails, reaches for something to latch on to—his fingers hit the wall, cool and smooth beneath his touch, and it's enough to drag him back into focus. He presses his palms to his face and digs the balls of his hand into his eyes, trying hard to calm himself down.

He's home, spread on his back in bed, and alone. There's a thin strip of sunlight shining in through the crack in the blinds and the bed next to him is warm, but empty. Yesterday wasn't just a dream, too, was it? He opens his eyes against the light and rolls onto his side to face the room, looking for something to help reorient himself, remind him of when and where he is.

His clothing leaves a hastily formed trail through the room, beginning at the door and ending on the floor next to the bed, a marker outlining the path of their passion from the night before. At first glance he finds only his own, and fear floods into his stomach in an icy wave before his eyes settle on Vergil’s coat, folded neatly on the armchair. He rolls onto his back and stares at the cracked plaster of the ceiling above him, focusing on his breathing—smooth and steady, one breath at a time. Not a dream, then. 

He lingers in the comfortable haze of half-wakefulness, basks in the glorious warmth of the bed and the memory of Vergil beneath him, warm and firm and alive. The remembrance soothes him, dispels the fear that has been instilled in his heart by his nightmare. He walks through every step of their lovemaking, commits it to memory in excruciating detail, a small beacon of positivity amidst the turmoil that is their history. Gently he touches a finger to his lips and he thinks about the taste of Vergil on his tongue, bitter and heady and intoxicating. In a way it’s unreal—he cannot believe that he’s been given this gift, a second chance with the only person who has ever mattered to him. 

Vergil’s scent is all around him and the phantom feeling of his kisses burns hot on Dante’s skin and it’s almost too much to bear. If he doesn’t get up now he is going to lose his composure—he’s already half hard, his eagerness on display by virtue of his nakedness. He presses his hand to his chest and feels his thundering heart beat, wills himself into a state of calm by breathing deeply through his mouth to avoid the overwhelming scent of his brother. 

With his composure mostly regained, he sits up and stretches out the kinks in his back and neck. Vergil has taken his pants and shoes, left his coat and vest behind, a fact made clear once Dante begins gathering up his own clothing. He dresses quickly—torn and faded jeans, a dark brown henley, his usual sturdy brown boots—and steps out of the room, his twin’s name on his lips. 

The lobby of the shop is empty, devoid of his brother’s presence, and a flicker of worry ignites in his chest and blows out just as quickly as his eyes focus and he takes in his surroundings. Across his desk rests the Yamato, a sign that Vergil hasn’t left, not permanently, and it is the best reassurance he could’ve hoped for. His twin is nothing if not dramatic, and this is suiting of his style: a delicately placed object, a promise with no words.

Dante walks up to the desk and rests his hand on the Yamato’s sheath, feeling the way she sings beneath his palm. He’s used her before, once upon a time in Fortuna, but she was never meant to be his—his brother’s essence is entwined with hers, the two indistinguishable even to Dante’s more acute demonic senses. The Yamato is an extension of Vergil, a piece of his soul as much as Dante is a reflection of it, and this gives him comfort, lessens the blow of his brother’s absence. He runs his finger along the length of the smooth wood of the scabbard, icy cold to the touch in spite of—or because as a result of—the power it contains. A perfect counterpoint to his own fiery soul embodied in his devil arm.

His brother has always been distant, even when they were children. Vergil’s independence is one of the most distinctive traits in Dante’s hazy memory of their childhood. Although they’ve made what he wants to believe is progress, he will have to learn to give his brother the room to digest what has happened to him and what his life will look like now as they move past their bloody and broken history. The idea is a difficult one for him to stomach—given the choice, Dante would never let Vergil out of his sight again, and even now his palms itch with the desire to touch and hold his twin, to feel the warm and very much alive beat of his heart beneath his hands. 

Dante releases a shaky breath and steps away from the Yamato, cutting himself off from the current of Vergil’s power that thrums through his blade. Perhaps the distance could be good for him as well, let him clear his head for a moment. He’s never been very good at keeping his feelings straight when it comes to Vergil—they are a messy, twisted thing, a tangled amalgamation of hatred and love and burning desire forever wound tight around Dante’s heart. Although he’d thought time had lessened the stranglehold of those feelings and that he’d come to accept the lose as his reality, his unexpected revival has thrown Dante’s equilibrium off balance.

He shakes his head to clear his thoughts and to redirect his attention on more important and material concerns. He will have to trust that Vergil can handle himself, wherever he may be, and he should take the opportunity to pick up the pieces of his life after six months away. 

He busies himself with the familiar and comforting mundanity of life in the human world, first by showering (and making a half-hearted effort to clean the bathroom before Vergil can scold him about his mess) and then by calling around, reconnecting with old contacts. He phones Morrison last, and the genuine joy he hears in his voice is a comfort Dante hasn’t realized he’s been missing. 

“Hey, you knew it’d take more than that to kill me,” Dante says, when Morrison expresses a concern implying that he’d nearly given up Dante for dead. He receives a deep baritone laugh in response, a sound steeped so inherently in the concept of “home” for Dante that he immediately feels at peace for hearing it.

“Of course. The girls and the kid been taking care of the jobs as they come in. You want me to line you up for one?” Morrison asks, and Dante picks at the ribbons on the Yamato while he considers this, letting the silky fabric run between his fingers. It sends another little spike of power through him, irresistibly and unmistakably Vergil’s, and he drops them before it can distract him from the task at hand. 

“Nah, not yet. I could use some time to recuperate,” he says, and Morrison hums in acknowledgement. Silence falls between them, and he hesitates on what he will say next, caught up between the desire to explain what has happened with the hesitation of sharing Vergil’s existence with anyone else. Part of it is worry over how his long-time mentor and friend will react; the other, if he is being honest with himself, is possessiveness. He wants to keep Vergil all to himself, is filled to the brim with a greedy compulsion to keep all of Vergil’s attention squarely on him. 

But that would be unfair and unrealistic, and he knows it. Morison knows him too well, and besides, Vergil could be a boon in his work--they can take on bigger jobs with less prep if there’s two of them, and that means maybe catching up on some of that debt that hasn’t magically gone away in the last six months. If there is anything Dante has learned about himself and his demonic blood in his thirty years in this line of work, it’s that he is in need of a regular outlet for the ever-present tension and desire for a fight that hums in his veins. Vergil will be the same, and as much as duking it out with his brother delights him, an actually constructive outlet would be more beneficial in the long run. 

So he starts that conversation, as casually as he can make it:

“Hey, Morrison. You remember how I said I had a brother?” Dante asks, and there’s a pause on the other line as the older man mulls that over. Dante’s past isn’t something he’s discussed at length with anyone on this planet, but Morrison knows enough to know that there’s a complicated history between the two sons of Sparda. They’d talked about it once immediately after Mallet, when Dante had been so blackout drunk that he hadn’t realized he’d been sharing his feelings  _ out loud _ until Morrison had started talking to him back. 

“Yeah. Why?”

“He’s back with me. It’s complicated, but he’s probably going to be staying with me for a while, so I figured you should know,” he says, and he’s met with more silence, then a quiet huff of breath. 

“Well, if you say so, Dante. You think he’s gonna behave?” Morrison asks, and Dante drums his fingers on the desk while he considers how to answer that. In his heart he wants to say  _ yes, of course, it’s not like before _ , but he knows that might not be true, no matter what Vergil has said to the contrary so far. He settles for somewhere in the middle:

“I think so, but either way I’ll be keeping an eye on him, so don’t worry about it,” Dante says, ignoring the fact that he is very much not keeping an eye on Vergil in this moment because Vergil is not here, but he has to trust him. 

“Alright, then. You want me to keep him in mind for any jobs that come up?” 

“Nope, just let me handle that,” Dante says, picking the strands of the Yamato back up between his fingers so he can feel the thrill of Vergil’s power again. It rushes to his head each time, a little spark of electricity under his skin like the static shock of touching a doorknob after walking across the carpet. He can’t get enough of it. 

He presses on, forcing himself to keep focus: “Any idea when Trish and Lady will be back? Kinda gonna need to prepare for that reunion...”

“Shouldn’t be too much longer now. Another week at most,” he responds, and Dante sighs a breath of relief. A week is plenty of time.

“Alright. Thanks for the details, as usual,” Dante says, and Morrison laughs. 

“Anytime,” Morrison says, and then adds, tone soft: “Glad you’re back, Dante. You had us worried for a bit there.”

“Aw shucks, you know I’ve got this. But thanks, really. I owe you one for keeping things running while I was out,” Dante replies, and they end the call with generic pleasantries and a promise to touch base again when Dante’s ready to start picking up new work. 

With the most pressing of his commitments out of the way and nothing to immediately occupy his mind, he falls back into his thoughts of Vergil—the sound of his voice, the feeling of his skin pressed against Dante’s, warm and slick with sweat—

He jumps to his feet and presses his palms to his face, letting out a deep, shuddering breath. Holy  _ shit _ he’s got it bad. It’s like a dam has been broken inside of him, the pent up feelings and desires he’s been hiding in the darkest parts of himself for twenty years unleashed in a terrible flood, all consuming in its destruction of his more sensible thoughts. If he doesn’t keep himself busy he might climb out of his skin, considering Vergil isn’t even here for him to take his pent up frustration out on.

Desperate for something to busy his hands, he settles on a task that he’s been ignoring for, quite frankly, far too long: he is going to clean his room. It’s not that he doesn’t recognize that it’s a disaster, because he does. He’s acutely aware of how the whole place looks to anyone coming in from the outside. It’s more that he’s just never had a reason to  _ care _ that it was the way it was—he didn’t care that it was a mess, therefore he didn’t care enough to clean it. Between the surplus of pent-up energy and the fact that, shit, he’ll actually be  _ living _ with someone again, he figures it’s as good an option as any for keeping himself busy.

It’s a repetitive, monotonous task, but it’s exactly what he needs right now. He kicks on the jukebox and loses himself in the perfectly human and simple act of cleaning up the worst of the mess—old liquor bottles, piles of paperwork that are probably five years old—things he has no use for and can easily justify throwing out. He falls into the rhythm of it and it masks the buzz in his brain and the nervousness that vibrates through every inch of his skin a little more manageable.

* * *

When Vergil's still not back several hours later and Dante's enthusiasm for cleaning has long since run out, he starts to get worried, the possible scenarios and explanations for Vergil's absence bouncing around his head on an endless loop. Maybe he ran into some kind of trouble. Maybe he's waltzed right back into the underworld again. Maybe he really has left for good.   
  
He makes it another twenty minutes before he's pulling on his coat and locking up the shop, unable to sit still and just wait it out any longer. There aren't many places he can imagine Vergil going—he can't see him heading to Nero's, not after yesterday's tumultuous family reunion, and if Vergil had a place to live before Temen-ni-gru, well, that's almost definitely gone now. There's really only one option, and even though Dante hates the idea of going back there with every fiber of his being, he supposes it's somewhat fitting: their beginning and end and, finally (hopefully) new beginning.   
  
He rides his motorcycle until the road has been knocked out beneath him by what happened six months ago, and then he changes form and flies the rest of the way, sweeping low over the destruction to keep an eye out for his brother. Seeing the wreckage left in the wake of the events of the past six months fills him with sharp, vibrant fury. He's angry with himself for taking so long to resolve the whole damn thing—Red Grave is nothing more than a crater now, collapsed into the rift opened by the roots of the Qliphoth tree, their hometown erased in the span of a month.    
  
All because of Vergil.   
  
He finds him where he expects: perched on the crumbling remains of a warehouse as close as he can get to where their house used to be before everything collapses inward into nothingness. The mansion and the graveyard where their mother was buried are long gone, swallowed up by the destruction, and all that remains is the white, dried husk of the Qliphoth, rising like a gravemarker on the skyline.   
  
Dante lands next to Vergil, resuming his human form the moment his feet touch concrete, and he walks up next to him, unsure what to say. Seeing the destruction first hand makes him angry, overwrites some of the good will he's been feeling toward his brother and replaces it with that same burning hatred he'd felt when Vergil had first reformed atop the Qliphoth tree. The demon half of Vergil or not, the mistake that had led to this had still been Vergil's doing.   
  
"I don't need a chaperone," Vergil says, the first to break the tense silence between them. Dante laughs, but it's dry and humorless.   
  
"You sure? You don't exactly have the best track record," Dante says, tilting his head toward the remains of the city; it's a low blow and he immediately feels guilty, but the sight of Red Grave as he flew in has left him feeling anxious and angry, frustrated all over again with Vergil's actions of the last six months. It earns him a grimace in response, regret etched into every bit of Vergil's face and posture.  _ Good _ , Dante thinks through the guilt,  _ at least that means you're not a total bastard. _   
  
“Did you come all this way just to mock me, brother?” Vergil asks, eyes forward and locked on the horizon, refusing to look over at Dante as he talks. He's sitting on the edge of what remains of the roof of this building, legs dangling over the side and arms stretched out behind him. Dante recognizes the plain jacket he's wearing as one of his own, something Vergil must've found lying around Dante's room this morning before he left. It's weird seeing him dressed down like this, looking so uncharacteristically normal, and even his anger can't stop him from thinking that the new wardrobe looks good on him. It’s nice to see him being… casual, for once. Comfortable and more relaxed.   
  
“Nah,” he replies, lowering himself to sit next to Vergil on the edge of the building’s roof, close enough that their shoulders and knees touch. “Why come back here, Verg? What good does it do?”   
  
Vergil doesn’t answer him, and after some time it’s clear that he doesn’t intend to. He’s always had a bad habit of ignoring the things he doesn’t want to deal with. Silence spreads out between them, stretching into long, slow minutes, and Dante reaches out and tugs on the edge of Vergil’s jacket, linking their arms together for want of something to occupy his hands with.

The gentle touch seems to jolt Vergil back into action, and he finally speaks: “Why don’t you hate me?”

The question catches Dante off guard—Vergil’s voice is soft, lacking the venom from his earlier statement and surprisingly genuine. Dante leans back and tilts his head skyward, considering this carefully. What does he say?  _ Does  _ he hate Vergil? In a way, he thinks he does—always has, ever since he went and decided to open a hell gate, since he abandoned Dante all those years ago. But the hate is a complicated thing, so deeply connected to the love and the longing that he feels for Vergil that he doesn’t think he could separate the two even if he wanted to. It’s just a part of the intricate makeup of who they are, another piece of the puzzle that they will have to work through as they slowly reassemble their lives.    
  
“For a really long time, I did. I hated you so goddamn much for what you did that it was all I could think about,” Dante says, flicking his gaze sideways toward Vergil to gauge for a reaction. He’s motionless, pale eyes focused forward, and so Dante presses on: “I hated myself, too, for letting it happen and for not trying harder to stop you. And I’m still—shit, Vergil, look at it. I’m still so mad at you. You’re an  _ idiot _ . But I think I get it, too, and that shit is in the past, and I’m just... I’m tired. I want to be done with it, alright?”   
  
More silence, interrupted only by the tap of Vergil's fingers on the concrete, and Dante wishes he'd say something—an apology, a profession of hatred, anything would be better than this quiet sadness. He sits his hand on Vergil's thigh and squeezes gently, hoping to impart some kind of comfort to his brother, to reinforce his words.   
  
"I regret it," Vergil says, finally tearing his gaze away from the destruction to look at Dante. "I lost everything, and for what?" 

Dante cups the base of Vergil’s head in his palm and tips his forehead against his, skin to skin, and he sighs.

"I don't know. But what I do know is that you haven’t lost everything, Verg. Sorry to say it, but you're stuck with me," Dante says, punctuating his point with a kiss against the corner of Vergil’s mouth, quick and light, pulling back before he can give Vergil time to react. He gets to his feet and rests his hand on his twin’s shoulder. “Enough moping for one day, alright? Let’s go.”

Vergil climbs to his feet with a huff, pausing to linger on the edge of the rooftop like he’s saying his final farewells to whatever might remain of their childhood home down in the murky depths below them. Dante grabs his hand to drag him away, an anchor to the present and reminder of their future, and they take off into the air together. 

* * *

They arrive back home sometime in the evening, arms full of boxes of food and bags of things from a quick trip through town, and it takes them some time to fall into a rhythm of what existing in the same space again will look like. They are settled down with dinner at the moment—the usual—and Dante is watching Vergil with the intensity of a hunter stalking its prey, studying all of his movements and learning his patterns.

The first of which to jump out at him is this: Vergil has a nervous tic of biting his lip. Dante doesn't remember it from when they were kids, from the short time they spent together in their teenage years, but now it seems like Vergil can barely stand to go even thirty seconds without doing it, and it's maddening. He pulls his lip between his teeth, chews on it absently while he's reading, slicing the delicate skin on a fang. It bleeds. He realizes his mistake, leaves it alone long enough that it has time to heal, and then he's back at it again, an endless cycle that, between the blood and the face he makes while he does it, is starting to make Dante go crazy.

“You have got to stop doing that,” Dante says between shoveling bites of pizza into his mouth. They’d stopped on the way back home for some supplies, despite Vergil’s protests that he wanted nothing to do with Dante’s little shopping trip. He’d been able to convince his twin to humor him only when he’d offered to buy him some of his own belongings—some clothes more suitable to his tastes, a couple of books, that sort of shit. He doesn’t really have the money to spare, but, well, it’s Vergil. He’s willing to splurge on his twin just this once if it means making him happy, and the look of relief on his face when he’d changed into something a little more his style (a stuffy button up shirt) was worth the extra expense. 

Vergil looks up from his book, brow quirked in Dante’s direction, and he asks: “Doing what.”

He does it again. Christ, he doesn’t even realize how insanely distracting he is. 

“ _ That _ ,“ Dante hisses, swallowing down the mouth full of pizza and trying not to choke to death in the process. Vergil narrows his eyes like he has no idea what Dante’s talking about, but then he does it  _ again _ , dragging his bottom lip through his teeth in the slowest imaginable way, and oh  _ god _ he’s such a bastard. “You’re killing me. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Vergil doesn’t answer—he just takes a bite of his salad, bloody lip be damned, and goes back to his book without a care in the world. It is a modern marvel how quickly Vergil went from “I’m sorry I’m an asshole” to “I’m the biggest bastard you’ve ever met,” but Dante supposes he should be thankful. It’s a welcomed break from the general state of “exhausted and anxious” they’ve been spending the last several weeks in, although he can still see the dull edges of it in the bags under Vergil’s eyes and the way his own hands shake when he reaches across the table to steal a crouton off of Vergil’s plate. 

He pops it into his mouth and crunches it between his teeth, a deliberately noisy action, his chin propped in his hands and eyes locked on Vergil’s face while he does. It doesn’t get him any sort of reaction, so he just stares at Vergil’s forehead over the edge of his book instead, continuing his analysis of everything about his brother. 

He looks… different. Now that they are sitting in relative peace and quiet with nothing else around to distract him, the subtle differences are beginning to take shape, standing out against the overall similarities. A slightly changed curve of his brow. Fuller cheeks, a rounder nose and heavier jaw. He looks young, younger than Dante at least, lacking some of the sunken and aged qualities that he’s sporting from years of fighting and drinking his way into oblivion. 

He hates it. It’s not that Vergil looks bad—on the contrary, he’s driving Dante crazy just by existing in the same space as him—but it’s not the same, and that makes him feel weird. Old. Tired. Maybe a little needlessly possessive. He’d always liked how identical they were—as a child, he’d believed that their sameness had been proof that they were inseparable, meant to always be together. He’d been wrong, of course, but. Either way. He’s always liked the idea.

Dante’s up out of his chair and circling around the table to stand next to Vergil before he can talk himself out of it—he wants to touch him, acquaint himself with the things that have changed about his twin through touch as much as sight. Vergil looks up from his book and studies Dante for a moment, brow arched in question. 

“You haven’t aged as much as me,” Dante says before he can stop his mouth from making the connection to his brain and voicing his pointless concerns. He cups Vergil’s cheeks in his hands and tilts his head, giving him a clearer look at the subtler differences. His skin is smooth and pale and free of blemishes; unmarked by age or sun, soft as silk beneath his palms. Vergil studies Dante in return with a pinched expression on his face and even his eyes are a little different, a shade paler, stepping from blue to cool, almost unnaturally pale gray. 

“I hadn’t noticed,” Vergil says, his words slow and thoughtful, “though I suppose it would make sense. I would have lost some time to…” he trails off, a frown creasing his brow, and Dante swipes his thumb over Vergil’s cheek and the corner of his mouth to smooth his face back into a more neutral expression. Better not to go too far down that path. 

“Yeah, I get it. It’s not bad; just weird, that’s all,” Dante responds, gently running his fingers along Vergil’s jaw before dropping his hands to his side, feeling awkward and self conscious over his lack of control. Vergil sits his book down and turns to face him, mouth drawn into a thin, tense line. He hesitates as if he has something to say, but the words end up caught in his throat and in the gleam of his eyes, and it hurts in a deep, sharp way that Dante can’t just guess at what his twin is struggling to express. They’ve been apart for too long, their paths diverging and leaving them changed, separated from each other by the things they can’t say. 

Vergil hooks his fingers into the belt loops of Dante’s jeans and pulls him close, pressing his forehead against Dante’s abs and hiding the complicated look of uncertainty. Dante places a hand on his head, carding his fingers through his hair. 

“Sorry,” Dante says, feeling guilty for upsetting his twin with his careless words. Vergil shakes his head against his stomach. 

“Don’t be,” he replies, pressing a kiss to the firm, flat expanse of Dante’s abdomen before pulling away. Dante thinks,  _ I want to kiss him,  _ a split second before it occurs to him that he can do just that, and so he slips his hand down the back of Vergil’s head, tilts his face upward, and captures his lips in a closed-mouth kiss.

When he pulls away he’s rewarded with a quiet grunt of disapproval, the faintest crack in his brother’s composure, and he grins down at him, thrilled with the this new power he has over him. The differences in Vergil are strange and hard to stomach, but he’s still unmistakably his twin, and Dante is willing to accept that, even if it means having to reacquaint himself with his brother.

They linger in awkward silence for a moment before Vergil stands, the action bringing their chests together, warm and comforting. Dante can feel his brother’s heartbeat pumping in time with his own, and god, it's so good to have this reminder that he’s really, truly alive, that they are still connected by this steady beat, two halves of one whole finally reunited. Vergil loops his arms around Dante’s neck and presses their foreheads together, the tips of their noses touching in the middle, before he tilts his head and pulls him into another kiss.

Dante rests his hands on his brother’s hips, pulling him close and leaning into the kiss; he opens his mouth to the tentative, probing tip of Vergil’s tongue, humming low in his throat in appreciation of the feel and the taste of him. When they separate it’s with a shared, quiet gasp, and Vergil’s cheeks are flushed a dull pink—he’s so pale that every little blush is visible, and Dante grins and kisses the bridge of his nose where it’s the most noticeable. 

He separates from his twin and runs a hand through his hair, shaking out the tangles and pulling it out of his face, a distraction to keep his hands busy. Looking at him like this—the faint blush, the slight part of his lips—makes Dante wonder what he can get away with, now that Vergil’s letting the barriers down a little, actually reciprocating for once. It’s almost too much, too soon, and he considers backing off for his own sake; but the separation and their earlier conversation has left him feeling a little clingy, and he thinks that Vergil could benefit from the affection, even if he’d never admit it.

Looping an arm with Vergil’s, he drags him to the beat up leather couch, flopping down dramatically on the cushions before patting the spot next to him expectantly. Vergil rolls his eyes even as he grabs his book and takes his seat, tucking himself into the corner with all the grace of a house cat, long legs crossed and fist pressed into his cheek.

Dante doesn’t waste even a second: he pulls his legs onto the couch and presses himself into Vergil’s side, his back to his twin and legs outstretched. Vergil frees his arm from beneath Dante’s weight before looping it loosely around his waist, his hand resting lightly curled on Dante’s abdomen. 

He’s content to just lie here like this, basking in Vergil’s warmth at his back and the gentle way his thumb rubs circles into his stomach, enjoying what is undoubtedly their first peaceful moment together since… probably since Vergil returned, really. He interlocks his fingers with Vergil’s, brushing his thumb over his knuckles, lingering in their shared, comfortable silence.

He doesn’t even realize he’s drifted off until he wakes up some time later and the room is dark, the sun having set low enough that it no longer reaches the few sparse windows that illuminate the shop during the day. There’s a horrible kink in his neck and shoulders and for a moment he lies in the confused delirium of post-nap waking, trying to remember where he is and what he was doing before he dozed off. It comes to him slowly—on the couch, at the shop,  _ cuddling with his brother _ —and he blinks his eyes open and tilts his head back to get a good look at Vergil.

Judging by the gentle, oh-so-quiet wheezing snore coming from behind him, he’s dozed off as well. The hand on Dante’s stomach is limp and his book is wedged between his thigh and the arm of the couch, forgotten; his head is tilted down, chin tucked against his chest, and butterflies explode in Dante’s stomach and beat at the back of his ribs at the sight of him, quiet and calm and relaxed like this. 

As much as he’d like to let his brother sleep—god knows they need it—he can’t resist the temptation to touch, and he carefully slides up and twists on the couch until he’s able to cup Vergil’s face in his hands. He wakes him with his mouth, kissing away the quiet grumbles of sleepiness as Vergil is dragged back into the land of the living. The arm on Dante’s waist tightens and he lazily returns the gesture, lips pressing against Dante’s faintly and with little urgency.

“You never were a morning person,” Dante says against his twin’s mouth as he pulls away, the memory coming to him out of nowhere—Dante, awake and alert the moment the sun had risen, eager to charge outside and face a new day. Vergil, having secretly read into all hours of the night beneath his covers, grumbling and trying to throw his sibling from the bed in annoyance. It’s nice that this hasn’t changed, that he can remember something so trivial between them. Reminds him that the sharper, harder memories haven’t overtaken everything.

“It’s not morning,” Vergil replies, voice quiet in his exhaustion, eyes half closed as he looks at Dante with a gentle softness that makes Dante’s heart feel like it’s going to split in half. The absurdity of his retort makes him laugh, so he kisses him again, and this time Vergil’s other hand snakes up his back to clutch at his shoulder, encircling him in his arms to hold him in a firm embrace. It’s Dante who breaks the contact, prying himself out of his brother’s possessive grip with a grumble.

“Let’s get in a  _ real  _ bed. ‘M tired,” he drawls, sliding his mouth down Vergil’s jaw and pressing a kiss to the delicate spot beneath his ear. His brother mumbles his agreement, freeing Dante from his arms and getting to his feet alongside him. Vergil stretches, arms above his head and back arched, and Dante doesn’t even pretend not to stare. His twin moves with feline grace, and it’s mesmerizing, watching him go about the simple chore of preparing for bed. He will never not be in awe of his brother, especially when it comes to this—the simple act of living, of performing normal, mundane tasks like cleaning up from their meal and slipping upstairs to the bathroom. In his entire life he’s never seen Vergil like this, and it hits him like being struck by a blow, knocks the air clean out of his lungs with its intensity: this could be forever, now. Their future. Together.

He desperately hopes it can last.

 


	2. Chapter 2

“You’re clingy,” Vergil says, as if he’s not just as tangled against Dante, arms looped around his waist, legs entwined with his, and bare chests touching. Dante is half on top of him, to be fair, and he is definitely trapped between Dante and the wall, but still. He’d been the one to pull Dante into his arms the moment he’d woken up, peppering slow and sleepy kisses against his brow and neck and shoulders.

The truth of the matter is that they are _both_ clingy. Two decades without his brother’s touch has left him wanting to make up for the lost time as much as possible, and he’s beginning to suspect that Vergil feels the same, even if he does hesitate, if Dante has to slowly pry the want out of him with his fingers and lips against his skin. _Touch starved,_ he thinks, burying his face into Vergil’s neck and basking in his warmth. They’d been clingy as children—well, he had been, always choosing to convey through touch what he couldn’t through words—and it’s like picking up an old language between them. He loves the intimacy of it, this shared and nonverbal communication between them; imperfect, but theirs.

“Got a lot of ground to catch up on,” Dante responds, letting his lips flutter against the thrum of Vergil’s pulse in his throat as he speaks. He draws his tongue up his brother’s jugular and nips at the soft skin gently with his teeth and he considers rolling onto his back and pulling Vergil on top of him, burying himself in his twin’s mouth and between his legs again.

They're so wrapped up in each other that Dante doesn't realize someone's at the front door until he hears it open two rooms away, followed by the distant sounds of the street outside and the quiet click as the door is closed once more. Voices, muttering things from the other side of his bedroom door that he can't really make out. The unmistakable sound of heels on wood floor.

He untangles himself from Vergil’s vice grip and sits up, running a hand through his hair in a half-hearted attempt to make himself look presentable. _Shit, that was quick_ , he thinks as he climbs out of bed, gathering up a pair of sweatpants and a loose t-shirt he can toss on as he goes out to greet them. Despite Morrison's assurance that the girls would be gone for at least another week, they seem to have finished the job quicker than anticipated—considering how skilled they are, he shouldn’t be shocked.

What he should've done is try to actually prepare Vergil for the reunion, a topic he's failed to even approach. He looks over his shoulder at his older brother and gets an arched brow in response and he shrugs apologetically.

"Sounds like the ladies are back. Try to, y'know, not stab them or anything, okay? Even if Lady shoots you, which she might do. She’s still trigger happy, and, quite frankly, you deserve it,” he says, and Vergil pinches the bridge of his nose and drops back onto the mattress with a grumble. Maybe it's for the better if he just hides in here for now.

He spares himself a glance in the small mirror he keeps on the dresser, grimacing at the shiny white crescent-shaped bite marks that line his shoulder. Deep enough to temporarily scar and noticeable enough to draw someone’s attention. He could find a different shirt, cover them up with a high collar, but that’d be too much effort to hide something he doesn’t particularly feel like hiding. This thing between them won’t stay a secret for long, not with the ladies at least, and he’s never been shy about his sexual preferences, so he steps into a pair of slippers and braces himself for the inevitable verbal beat down he’s about to receive.

Trish is on the other side of the door when he opens it and he almost— _almost_ —yelps in surprise when he finds her standing cross-armed and fuming two inches from his face.

“Hey babe,” he says, taking a small step back to make some space between them.

“Six months,” she replies, taking a much larger step to stay up in his face.

“Yeah, about that. Sorry. Would’ve come back sooner if we could have, but, y’know—“

“We?” Lady’s standing just a foot or two behind Trish and off to the side; he hadn’t noticed her until she spoke up, and the way she says that single word is so jam-packed full of icy cold malice that he freezes up.

“Yes, ‘we,’” Vergil replies behind him. Dante looks over at his twin and makes a hand gesture that he hopes conveys “hey maybe shut up and stay in bed,” but Vergil’s just ignoring them, rummaging in a pile of Dante’s clothes for a shirt he can wear. Trish looks between Vergil, bare chested and sitting on the side of Dante’s bed, and Dante, eyes narrowing when she sees the bite marks on his shoulder, and she sighs, shaking her head.

“Well, at least I know you’re not trying to kill each other. I think,” she says, lips quirked in a knowing smile. She accepts the situation with little fuss—then again, she’s a full-blooded demon, so human taboos about things like a little brotherly incest don’t faze her. Small blessings.

Lady, on the other hand, doesn’t seem as open to just accepting things at face value. She’s glaring daggers at Vergil over Trish’s shoulder and her fingers are twitching at her side, aching for a gun. Lucky for him she’s already unarmed herself or he suspects he’d have Vergil’s blood to scrub out of the carpet.

“Hey, Lady. I’m sorry I disappeared on you guys,” Dante says, trying for distraction and sincerity to soothe her anger. She narrows her eyes at him.

“You brought him back. After everything,” she says, and he knows that “everything” starts with the Temen-ni-gru and ends with Urizen turning her and Trish into puppets, and he can’t fault her for her surprise. After twenty-four years together he’s gotten a pretty good feel for what she’s feeling, and he knows she’s worried—for him, of all things.

“Yeah, I did. What did you want me to do, leave him in hell?” _Again._ Lady just glares at him even harder in response, like she’s not sure what he should’ve done but she’s reasonably sure the answer _isn’t_ bring his possibly sociopathic brother home and straight into his bed.

Vergil, for his part, pretends that they aren’t talking about him while he stands right there. He tugs on an acceptably clean long-sleeved t-shirt and then hesitates, looking for all intents and purposes like he’s two steps away from summoning the Yamato to his side and hopping into a portal to anywhere but here. Dante considers asking him to do it just so he can throw himself through the damn thing, too, but then Vergil just shakes his head and gets to his feet.

“I should leave you two to your... conversation,” he says, trying to slip past them and into the shop, but Trish isn’t budging and Lady’s looking like she’s going to conjure a gun out of thin air just so she can shoot him with it, so he doesn’t get very far. Dante puts a hand on Vergil’s lower back as he steps around him and puts himself between the girls and their target.

“Look, I get why you’re both hesitant here, but trust me on this, okay? Give me a few minutes to actually wake up and I’ll explain everything,” he says, and Trish just shrugs, walking back into the room and dropping onto the couch to lounge. She’s the easy one.

Lady looks at him like she’s not sure what to make of him any more, and it hurts. He knows why she’s feeling betrayed right now, but he’s not in a place to start explaining. Not with Vergil around, at least. He owes her that much, a private conversation to try to make his case and make amends for what he’s done.

“Please,” he adds, voice soft and earnest, trying to keep his expression unreadable.

She stares at him for a moment longer before she turns, heading straight for the front door. “Whatever,” she says as she steps out and slams it shut behind her. Dante groans, running his hand over his face to try to wake himself up a little more.

“Well, shit,” he says, earning a little laugh from Trish.

“Could’ve been worse. Just be happy she left the guns in the car,” Trish says with another shrug, and Dante walks into the room and drops into his desk chair with a sigh. He folds his arms over the cool wood and drops his head onto them, reaching out to idly fidget with the Yamato while he wallows in his self-pity.

Behind him, Vergil tries to make a beeline for the bathroom upstairs; he sees his twin stiffen when Trish shoots him a glare, but she doesn’t say anything, so he doesn’t stop, and he’s out of sight and locking the bathroom door before anything can transpire between them. Dante sits in the awkward silence for a time, trying to decide what to talk about, before deciding to _not_ talk about what Trish almost definitely wants to talk about. Deflection—his greatest asset.

“How was the job?” He asks, and she leans back on the couch, stretching out her arms and legs with a sigh, long and languid in her movements. She’s like a serpent preparing to strike, he can see it in her eyes and the way she moves; it’s only a matter of what topic she plans to harass him about first.

“Easy. Mostly travel time, really,” Trish says, and then she props herself up on her elbows and levels a look at Dante that reminds him so much of his mother’s when she’d scold them that it makes his breath hitch in his throat for a moment. Fifteen years and she still does this to him sometimes—a look or a touch, something small and inconsequential that brings the memories bubbling to the surface of his mind, rising out of his subconsciousness like a ghost.

“I know you’re pissed,” he says, and she shakes her head.

“If you think I’m angry about him, I’m not. I trust you and your judgment,” she says, always short and to the point in matters like this. “Why did you give Morrison the deed?”

Ah. _That_.

He especially doesn’t want to talk about that.

“So I knew someone actually responsible would take care of the place,” he says, and she laughs, a short and curt burst of noise with absolutely no emotion behind it whatsoever. It is a distinctly demonic trait, and it is uniquely her; Eva never laughed like that.

“I know why you gave it to _him_. Why did you give it away at all?” Her persistence is frustrating, but unsurprising. She would’ve seen through that decision the moment she learned he’d signed the place over. After nearly twenty-five years in this profession he’d never felt the need to make backup plans like that, and she’d notice, and there’s no doubt that Lady did, too.

“Cause I wasn’t sure, alright?” _Because I knew I wouldn’t survive killing him again._ “This wasn’t just a normal job. Sometimes even I know how to be cautious.”

She sighs, says: “You're a terrible liar, Dante.” But she drops it anyway, flopping back onto the couch with a quiet hum.

“Do you think he’s here to stay?” She says after a brief pause, and Dante traces his finger over the edge of the book of poetry Vergil has also left on the desk while she talks. He’s been trying not to think about that too hard, afraid that if he voices his worries and his desires then this fragile peace they’ve erected between them will suddenly crumble.

“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully, leaning back in his chair to stare at the ceiling, the second floor where Vergil is currently showering to avoid the social situation happening in the lobby. Dante considers going up to join him, shakes his head instead and lets out a sigh of his own, his voice barely above a whisper when he says: “I hope so.”

She hears him, of course—demonic senses and all that—and there’s a sort of sad look on her face when she glances over his direction that he immediately, reflexively hates. Blissfully she doesn’t press further, instead directing her attention at the other problem in his social life: Lady.

“She’s angry with you, too, you know. And no, not just for him, though I’m sure you know he’s a factor,” she says, lacing her fingers together behind her head, leaning back and tapping a slow rhythm out on the floor with her heel. It’s a nervous habit, one that Dante recognizes as her trying to think of the best way to address a problem she’s not entirely equipped to deal with. Emotions: the ever confusing and elusive aspect of humanity that Trish still struggles with from time to time.

“I could tell,” he responds, digging his fingers into his temples and forehead, rubbing out the headache he can already feel forming behind his eyes. “Any chance you can try to talk to her for me?”

Trish barks out another laugh, that same emotionless noise from before: “Absolutely not. You know this is your problem, not mine.”

“Figured,” he says, pushing away from the desk and stretching. Better that he head over to her place as soon as possible—if he gives her too much time to stew in her anger, she’ll probably shoot him on sight just for making her wait so long to have a conversation. They are both spectacular messes at this living thing, but at least she’s no better than he is. It’s comforting, in a way.

He hears the sound of the shower flipping off over head followed by Vergil’s footsteps as he moves around upstairs, presumably finishing up in the bathroom. Before his brother can return downstairs, he steps closer to Trish, voice barely above a whisper:

“Stay here for a while and keep an eye on him for me while I’m gone?” He asks, and she raises a brow at him, considering his request for a split second before she nods.

“Sure. Permission to kick him if he does anything idiotic?” Dante laughs at her question as he walks away and up the stairs, passing Vergil as he goes.

“Granted,” he replies, earning him a slightly creased brow from his twin in response; he just shrugs, patting him on the shoulder as he passes and heads to the shower to prepare for his verbal beat down, part two.

* * *

He shows up at Lady’s apartment with a six-pack of her favorite (expensive) craft beer and a mouth full of apologies, and she stares at him through the crack in the front door for so long that he begins to suspect that she’s trying to outlast his patience before she finally undoes the chain lock and lets him in. She doesn’t talk to him at first, content to just let him ramble his pointless apologies and offer her the beer with a ridiculous flourish and bow, and it’s not until they are both settled on her beat-up hand-me-down couch that she decides to grace him with her voice.

“You’re an idiot,” she says, snatching a beer from the pack and opening it with a pocket knife she pulls from some mystery dimension in her yoga pants, disregarding the fact it’s barely past noon on a Sunday. He’s been there, he’s not one to judge. She pulls her legs up onto the couch, back pressed against the arm so she can face him, the full force of her judgement staring him down through hetero-chromatic eyes.

“Yep,” he agrees, draping himself over the arm of the couch and focusing his attention and his nervous fingers on the stack of old gun magazines haphazardly stashed on the side table. Lady’s apartment is small, modestly decorated with second-hand furniture that she’s spruced up herself—she’s handy with that whole DIY thing, skilled enough with some paint, a sewing machine, and a belt sander that she can make anything look like part of a matching set. She’s the mastermind behind the haphazard aesthetic of the Devil May Cry, cobbled together with furniture they’d found in a dumpster and the random odds and ends Dante’d accepted as payment over the years instead of cold hard cash.

He’s letting himself get distracted and it’s obvious that she’s onto him. She’s glaring daggers into the side of his head while she sips her beer, and he picks up one of the magazines and flips to a random page, using it as a place to focus his eyes while he takes another stab at his apology.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and she raises a brow and puts the bottle to her lips and _stares_ at him, a look that puts even Vergil’s coldest glare to shame, and he rolls his eyes and starts again, “I’m sorry for leaving without telling you. And for not telling you about the deed.”

“What the hell was that even about, Dante?” She pokes him in the thigh with a bare toe when she asks it—jabs him hard, enough that it makes him flinch purely on reflex.

“You know what it was about,” he snaps, closing the magazine and turning to face her and meeting her gaze. “You knew what he was asking me to do.”

She shrugs, breaks eye contact as she says: “Yeah, I knew.” A pause, then: “What were you planning?”

“I don’t know,” he says, and it’s a lie, and she knows it, but he thinks she picks up on what he’s not saying, too, because she just nods. He wasn’t planning on coming back. One way or another, this was going to be the last one for him, especially if—

He stops that train of thought with a deep breath and a hand pressed to his eyes. No point thinking about it; it hadn’t come to pass that way, and he can just move on from it.

“See anything cool in hell?” Lady says, finishing the last of her beer with a grin. They have always been good at this—distraction and deflection when it’s most needed, skirting on the edge of emotional breakdown, but always knowing when and what to say to redirect each other, refocus their attention to keep them from spiraling over the edge. He pulls his hand from his eyes and drops it on her shin, a comfortable, friendly gesture.

“Demons, more demons, the shittiest architecture you’ve ever seen. Seriously, they could use an experienced interior designer like yourself to go in and set ‘em straight,” he says, reforming his face into a lazy grin. They spend some time tossing this idea back and forth, discussing hell’s penchant for twisting hallways and excessively large buildings; the largest demon that Dante had killed while in hell; the sorts of jobs that Lady and Trish had undertaken in his absence. They are open and honest and easy with each other the way that only someone who has been through hell and back again with you can be, and he gets so wrapped up in their reminiscing that he loses track of time--when he looks at the clock on her wall next, it’s nearly dinner time.

He’s hit by a moment of horror when he realizes he’s left Vergil at Trish’s mercy for the last five hours, and Lady picks up on it immediately, laughing at his suddenly distressed expression.

“I’m sure she’s kept him under control,” she says, and Dante shakes his head as he gets to his feet.

“He’s not the one I’m worried about,” he grumbles, gathering up his coat and shoes, dressing quickly. Lady unfolds herself from the couch and walks up to him, grabbing him by his elbows and holding him at arm’s length. She’s looking at him with an intensity that makes the skin on the back of his neck crawl, her expression as serious as he’s ever seen in before.

“Does he make you happy?” She asks, voice soft and low. The question sends a pang of heat lancing through his chest, and he thinks, _yes, god, it’s all I’ve ever wanted and you know that_. He just nods, and she nods back, pulling him into a hug. “Then I’m okay. But if he tries anything, I’ll kill him. Deal?”

She’s deathly serious and he knows it, hopes in the deepest part of his heart that it’ll never come to that, and he encloses her in his arms and rests his chin on her head, nodding his approval into her hair.

“Yeah, sounds good. I’m gonna hold you to that.”

He’s out the door with a promise that he’ll call her soon to regroup and reevaluate the business now that Vergil’s in the mix, and he can feel her eyes on him from her living room window as he walks the short distance to his bike. She’s tough as nails and way too stubborn—honestly, he’s lucky he has her.

* * *

Trish is sitting on the steps to the shop when he returns, her legs and arms crossed and eyes closed as if she’s dozing. When she senses his arrival she looks up and grins at him in greeting.

“How did it go?” She asks, and he shrugs.

“Fine. I think she’s past wanting to shoot us both, at least.” As far as Lady is concerned, getting past being shot on sight when she’s mad at you is an accomplishment in and of itself. The bad habit she’s picked up from being surrounded by people who don’t die when you shoot them in the head is sometimes she shoots first and demands your apology later. He can’t really hold it against her considering who she has to deal with on a daily basis, but damn if it isn’t annoying how much blood he’s had to clean up as a result.

“Good. I’m going to go stay with her for a bit. I don’t want to… intrude,” Trish says, looking over her shoulder at the front door to the shop. He gets the impression that something might’ve transpired between Vergil and Trish, but when he tries to ask her about it, she just shakes her head with a small smile. “It’s nothing to worry about. Good luck with him. Call us if you need anything.”

She’s gone before he can ask her for details.

He barely makes it through the front door before Vergil’s on him, teeth and tongue and fingers digging into his shoulders. The sudden rush of it makes Dante’s heart skip a beat—he gropes along the door trying to find the lock for an inordinate amount of time, fingers sliding over cold wood and metal ineffectually as Vergil presses himself flush against Dante. Any coherent thought in his head is smashed into pieces when his twin shoves his knee between Dante’s thighs, forcefully pinning him against the wall with his body, and he can’t bite back the low whine that escapes his mouth against Vergil’s. The sound breaks their contact, Vergil pulling back enough to give them both room to breathe—he’s panting hard, cheeks flushed from the kiss, eyes gleaming a supernatural blue.

The demon in Dante responds to the display with a low, rumbling growl, a sound like rocks in a tumbler that makes his throat tingle from the inadequacy of human vocal chords. Dante finds the lock, clicks it shut before slipping his hands up Vergil’s back instead, scraping his nails down his spine until he feels him shudder under his touch.

“I wasn’t gone that long,” he says with a breathy laugh. Vergil seems inclined to disagree—he presses his mouth to Dante’s again with frantic need, forcing his way between his lips and eagerly claiming him with his tongue. Sharp teeth brush against his own tongue and he pulls back with a quiet hiss, mouth full of the taste of copper.

“It was long enough,” Vergil says, his voice echoing with a demonic pitch that steals the breath from Dante’s lungs and makes his vision swim as if he’s being sucked under water. The front of his jeans is becoming oppressively tight, and Vergil must feel it against his thigh because he smirks, a gleaming thing with far too many teeth to be human. He presses his knee up into Dante’s crotch in response, tearing a hiss from his lungs.

“ _Shit_ , Verg,” Dante says—whines, really, the words coming out breathy and desperate. He has to fight against the rush of blood to his head to keep talking, but it’s a losing battle, especially as Vergil starts trailing kisses along Dante’s chin. The sharp points of his teeth brush his skin as he goes, each contact sending little jolts of excitement down Dante’s spine.

“Didn’t think you’d miss me that much,” he starts before a swipe of tongue along his jaw and a nip of teeth on his earlobe has him baring his neck to Vergil, a primal instinct that swallows his words up with a half-human whine when Vergil’s fangs find the soft flesh of his throat. He pierces skin enough to hurt and to make blood pulse hot down his neck, pooling in the dip between his collarbone and shoulder, and Dante’s knees instantly give out beneath him.

Dante’s spent the last twenty years of his life shoving his demonic impulses down into the dark depths of his consciousness, pushing away the cravings, the bloodlust and the aching need to dominate and be dominated. He’s bundled it all up and buried it beneath alcohol and denial, and it’d been fine, hell, after a while it’d been _easy_ , since there was no one around to bring out that side of him anyway. Except now Vergil’s back, growling into his ear and pinning him to the wall of his shop with two clawed hands on his chest and Dante’s blood running hot and thick in his mouth, and it’s like every nerve in his body is on fire. One display of dominance is all it takes and he’s turning to jelly under Vergil’s touch; without the wall at his back he’d be flat on his ass on the floor, no questions asked.

“You’re mine,” Vergil says, voice thick and deep from lust and Dante’s blood in his mouth, lips brushing against the sensitive skin of Dante’s neck. The wound is already healing and Dante shudders when his twin licks across the raw, freshly knitted skin and dips his tongue down in the crevice of his clavicle. He laps up Dante’s blood like it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted, purring in contentment, and Dante doesn’t even bother trying to hide the desperate whine that escapes him at that. How the hell is Vergil _drinking his fucking blood_ this much of a turn on. Demon libidos are fucked up.

“Don’t tell me you’re honestly jealous,” he says, bracing himself against Vergil by wrapping his arms tightly around his neck. A part of him hopes he hasn’t realized exactly what effect he’s just had, but then Vergil straightens up and locks eyes with him, lips pinker than usual from Dante’s blood and their kissing, and the grin on his face is decidedly wicked. It makes his stomach do a backflip even as he thinks, _shit, what have I gotten myself into._

He’s caught off guard when Vergil cups the back of his thighs beneath his knees and hoists him off the ground, and he wraps his legs around his brother’s waist on reflex for fear of being dropped. The movement grinds his crotch against Vergil’s stomach, an unexpected consequence, and the moan it drags out of both of them hits the same fevered pitch, echoing together in harmony. Dante laughs at the absurdity of it.

“Isn’t it a little early in the relationship for you to—” He’s silenced by Vergil’s mouth on his, tongue shoving between his lips and sliding against his, and any thoughts of scolding his brother’s possessiveness abandon him. Vergil tastes like copper and salt and something Dante can’t name that he’s decided is just uniquely Vergil, and it’s an intoxicating blend—he’s drunk off the taste of him, the way he forces his way into Dante’s mouth as deeply as he can, like he’s staking his claim.

Vergil carries him through the room, a clumsy, awkward gesture that ends with Dante banging his ankle hard on the corner of something before his brother has to give up and break the kiss so he can see what he’s doing. He spins them around and drops Dante on the edge of the desk, sweeping the papers and pens to the side to give them room, dismissing the Yamato to wherever it is their devil arms go with a flick of his wrist.

“Oh, are you gonna fuck me on my desk? Always wanted to do that,” Dante says, voice a purr in Vergil’s ear. It earns him a low growl, a deep rumble that vibrates through his chest and down to Dante’s dick against his abdomen. Two days back at this and he’s already figured out how to push all of Vergil’s buttons, a dance he’d only temporarily forgotten the steps to. Now that they’re tangled together again it’s like they’ve picked up where they left off twenty-some odd years ago—older, sure, softer and a little more fragile, but playing off of each other all the same.

Vergil breaks him from his memories with the insistent tug of his fingers on the edge of Dante’s shirt as he tries to pry it free from his pants, a chore that’s proving more difficult for his refusing to give Dante the space to undress. Dante puts a hand on his twin’s chest and pushes him back—the blast of cold air that hits him in his twin’s absence makes him shudder.

“You’re the most clingy fuck I’ve ever had, I swear,” Dante says, dragging his shirt off his chest and tossing it unceremoniously into the room. He moves to start on his belt next, but Vergil’s back on him before he can make much progress, all tongue and teeth and roaming hands.

“And how many other fucks have you had, little brother,” Vergil responds, voice low and demonic, possessiveness punctuated with his teeth in Dante’s shoulder. He laughs between the grunts of pain that Vergil drags out of him.

“Boy, someone’s feeling touchy today,” he says, tilting his head to give Vergil easy access to his neck, which he takes without hesitation, sinking fangs in the soft flesh once more with a hum of contentment. At least now that he’s sitting the weakness in his knees isn’t as noticeable. He presses on, voice softer this time, the joke losing some of its novelty in the wake of his current reality: “It doesn’t matter. None of them were you.”

He means it, hopes that Vergil can see past the jokes to know it. The only person he’s ever wanted, who’s ever been enough for him is Vergil—his perfect, irresistible, untouchable other half. Everything else has just been a distraction, a one night stand to take the edge off and numb the aching emptiness that Dante felt without him. No one else has ever come close to Vergil.

He pushes his twin off when his head starts to spin and the blood on his neck feels too hot and sticky to ignore any more, interrupting the trail Vergil has been licking across his shoulder. The wounds heal quickly, but he’s still a mess, blood smeared across his neck and shoulder and cock painfully hard against the front of his jeans. Dante huffs in annoyance as he continues undressing, kicking off his boots at the same time he pries off his belt.

“If you’re just going to stand here sucking on me all night the least you could do is suck my—“ he’s shut up with a hand clasping to his mouth and the most long-suffering groan he’s ever heard Vergil make.

“ _Dante,_ ” Vergil growls, irritation rolling off of him in waves of cold demonic energy, and Dante thinks _shit_ even as his inner demon responds to the sign of aggression and his blood feels like it’s boiling, red hot to Vergil’s icy cool. Despite the display of power, his voice is gentle when he opens his mouth next, whispering into Dante’s ear: “Try to relax.”

Before Dante can think up a suitable retort to that he’s being pinned to the top of the desk, Vergil’s right hand trapping his wrists above his head while he unbuttons Dante’s jeans with the other. The friction of his hand passing over him sparks a fire in Dante’s gut and he can’t stop himself from rutting up into Vergil’s fingers, desperate for his touch. Pretty hard to relax when Vergil’s two steps away from going full demon mode on him, his eyes still lit with an otherworldly gleam in the dim light and his mouth tinted red with Dante’s blood.

The worst part of it is that Dante _loves_ it, loves the way each growl and bite resonates with that hidden part of himself and makes his inner demon sing with joy. It’s probably something about demonic instincts, reactions to the subtle shift in power between them or something, but before he can put much more thought into it Vergil is pulling his jeans down and cold air hits his dick and he _whines,_ high pitched and desperate.

Vergil tosses his pants to the void where the rest of his clothing has ended up, and he steps back, leaving Dante naked and exposed on the desk. Hunger glitters in his eyes as he looks Dante over, gaze sweeping from his face to his cock and back again, and Dante’s filled with the overwhelming compulsion to spread himself at Vergil’s feet, offer himself up to anything Vergil might want from him. A voice in the back of his brain whines _submit let him take you let him_ and he drags a hand down his face, hides in the crook of his elbow to break that gaze and try to steady himself.

He hasn’t felt this out of control since he was a teenager, angry and feral and with no one to turn his inhuman aggression on except for himself. Vergil’s waking up a part of him he’s not sure he really wants to see, even if it makes his heart race with excitement and his legs go weak when Vergil marks him with his teeth in the soft side of his throat.

He’s yanked back to reality by Vergil’s hand on his forearm, pulling his arm back and revealing his face. With his other hand he reaches down and gently, tentatively strokes Dante’s cock, a soft and slow motion from the tip all the way down to the base and back again. He groans low in his throat and tries to will his muscles to relax, for the tension to drain out of him.

“Are you okay?” Vergil asks it even though Dante knows it’s not what he wants to be saying right now, can tell by the silvery-black scales that have begun creeping along the side of his face and neck that Dante’s wellbeing is almost certainly a secondary concern. He appreciates it, nevertheless. It’s a good effort on his part, overwhelming demonic lust or no.

“Yeah, just, _shit._ I’m not used to _this,_ ” he says, gesturing to Vergil with his free hand, hoping to encompass the scales and the fangs and the demonic glow in his eyes with that one vague motion. Vergil cocks his head to one side at that, confusion evident in his expression before it seems to click for him and he just laughs, a small, breathy noise through his nose.

“None of those other fucks were good enough for you, then, brother,” he says, and _that’s_ more like it, voice dripping with venom and barely masked jealousy, and he can’t even hide the way it makes his dick hard because Vergil’s hand is wrapped around him already, dragging a moan out of him with every stroke. He wants to say something else, some other kind of smart ass gibe about Vergil’s inadequacy as a partner, but for the third time his mind is wiped blank by Vergil as he bends down over him and runs his tongue up the center of his chest in a straight, wet line over his sternum and the scar left by Rebellion—by Vergil.

It’s one of the only injuries he’s ever sustained that has significantly scarred, and he can tell by the way Vergil’s looking at it, eyes half closed and lips curled in a small grin, that this fact pleases him. He’s still pressing little kisses to the raised knots of flesh of the scar when he sneaks his hand up Dante’s chest and grabs his chin, prying his mouth open and shoving two clawed fingers in to the knuckle. He gags once, has to will his breathing to even out around the sharp intrusion in his mouth, but it sets a fire under his skin and he moans, grinding up into Vergil’s hand in response.

He twines his tongue between Vergil’s fingers, sucks on them once to earn himself a moan in return before he tries to pull his head back so he can talk. Vergil takes the hint after a second of hesitation where Dante’s almost sure he’s trying to choke him on purpose, removing his fingers and trailing Dante’s saliva down his jaw and throat to mingle with the dried blood already smeared all over him.

“Fuck me,” he whispers, voice hoarse and head swimming with his frantic need—between the slow and unsatisfying strokes on his cock and the fingers in his mouth he’s lost all pretense of maintaining his composure, neither source of pressure enough to give him what he really wants. Vergil releases him and straightens himself out so he can press between his legs and kiss him, hard and with too much teeth.

“What was that?” Vergil asks when he pulls away, teeth lingering in Dante’s lower lip. He grinds down against Dante and he’s hard, so fucking hard through those tight leather pants, and even through the fabric the feeling of his cock pressing down against Dante is maddening.

“Fuck me. Shit, Verg—” another thrust makes the words dissolve into a formless whine and he has to bite his own lip until he draws blood to get himself back on track— “I want—I need you inside of me.”

Vergil’s kissing him again the moment the words leave his mouth, fisting one hand in his hair and pulling on it until it makes Dante see stars. With his other hand he trails a line down Dante’s chest before curving his fingers around his hip, grabbing his buttocks and squeezing. Pointed claws dig into the sensitive flesh and he balks, pushes Vergil off with both hands, because he’s just realized _claws_ and that sure as shit is not happening.

“Oh hell no. Either put those away or let me do it myself,” Dante says, and he realizes a second too late what he’s just suggested and, judging from the look Vergil’s shooting him—eyes flashing bright, lips slightly parted, like he’s about to enjoy the best show on earth—he already knows which option he’s going to be taking. _Shit._ He’s not sure he’s ready for this.

“Be my guest,” Vergil says, breaking the contact between them to step just far enough back that Dante has room to turn around and reposition himself so his feet are planted on the ground and his legs are spread, ass in the air and holding himself up by his forearms on the desk. As an afterthought he reaches over and flips the portrait of their mother face down, cheeks burning hot with shame. Behind him, Vergil chuckles.

“What, can’t even bring a guy some lube?” He says, because he needs to distract himself a little, bury the fact that his heart is hammering in his chest and his blood is singing in his veins behind some good old-fashioned humor. Vergil doesn’t pay him any mind—there’s the sound of rustling fabric and his leather boots scraping against the floor and Dante looks over his shoulder to try to figure out what Vergil’s up to just as he sinks his teeth into Dante’s right ass cheek. It rips a howled curse out of him and makes his legs shake, but Vergil’s there holding his hips to steady him and running a tongue along the wound he’s just made like he can’t get enough of Dante’s blood no matter where it comes from.

This new, demonically horny side of Vergil is both wonderful and absolutely horrible, Dante decides, focusing all of his energy on keeping himself standing.

“Could you at least put your mouth to good use?” Dante says, reaching back with one of his hands and wiggling his fingers at Vergil as an invitation. There’s a second of hesitation before he feels Vergil’s mouth close around his fingers, hot and wet and full of sharp, pointed teeth. He runs his tongue along Dante’s fingers like he’s making love to them, sucking them in as deep as he can get them until his fingertips brush against the back of his throat and Dante can feel the spasms as he struggles to tame his gag reflex.

His brother has no idea how to do anything halfway, and he both hates him and loves him for it.

There’s only so much of Vergil sucking his fingers off he can take before he’s pulling back from him and letting out a shaky, quiet breath. He can’t believe he’s about to do this—he’s fingered himself before, it’s nothing _new_ —but with Vergil behind him and the warm puff of his rapid breathing ghosting along his ass cheek, he’s suddenly feeling shy.

As if sensing his hesitation Vergil gently takes his hand in his, guiding him back and running his knuckle over Dante’s hole. He hisses out a breath at the feather light touch before just surrendering to the moment, shoving a finger in up to the knuckle. It sends a spark of pain up his spine (he’s never been good at being gentle with himself) and he shudders, dropping his forehead to the desk.

Behind him, Vergil _purrs_ , digging his fingers into Dante’s hips and spreading him open with his thumbs, giving Dante better access and him an undoubtedly better show. The fact that Vergil is sitting behind him watching him do this makes him want to scream and beg, so he shoves his second finger in with no preamble and rides out the wave of pain and pleasure with a groan, eager to get the whole thing over with.

“You’re beautiful,” Vergil says between the kisses he’s pressing to the back of Dante’s thighs and his buttocks, voice barely above a whisper. He sinks his teeth into the back of a thigh and the pain of the bite collides with the pleasure as he curls his fingers inside of himself and he _howls,_ doesn’t care how loud or inhuman it comes out, doesn’t care how absurd he must look like this, he needs Vergil inside of him _immediately—_

“Please,” he whines, moving his fingers and rocking his hips back into his own hand in desperate, jerky motions, because it’s not enough. “Just, _fuck,_ please.” It’s enough to get Vergil on his feet and running his hands up and down Dante’s back, soothing motions that start at his shoulder and go all the way down to his hips and back up again. He leans forward, chest pressing against Dante’s back and hips against his ass, and he nips at Dante’s ear.

“Are you begging?” His voice is barely above a whisper and it sends a puff of warm air across Dante’s ear and cheek, making him shudder. “I think I like it.”

“Of course you would,” he hisses between his teeth, making a point of grinding back against Vergil to try to elicit another growl out of him. It works, the sound deep and husky and right in Dante’s ear, and he answers it in kind.

He can feel Vergil’s hand against his back side as he struggles to unzip his pants and free himself, followed by the feeling of his cock, hard and slick with precum, pressing against his wrist and ass. He hesitates for a moment, thinks _shit, I need to start keeping lube in the desk_ , debates sending Vergil after it before deciding he doesn’t give a shit. The part of him that’s roaring under his skin and sending a shudder up through his spine _wants_ it to hurt, craves the pain with the pleasure, wants nothing more than to surrender himself to Vergil completely.

He hisses out a breath through clenched teeth as Vergil pulls his hand away by his wrist and presses into him, slow and steady, but overwhelming all the same. Pain and pleasure ripple up his back and he groans, burying his face in his forearms on the desk. Behind him, Vergil releases a shaky gasp of his own, clawed fingers digging into Dante’s hip as he slowly slides into place. The desperate growl he makes against Dante’s shoulder sends a shudder down his spine and he arches his back and digs his own nails into his arms, trying to maintain his hold on some shred of his dignity that might remain.

The feeling of Vergil sliding into him all the way up to the hilt is almost enough to tip him over the edge—it’s been so long since he’s had this, Vergil on top of him and inside of him, his walls crumbling away and giving in to the simple, carnal pleasure of their lovemaking. He’s dreamt of it since that night twenty years ago, been filled with a deep aching emptiness that finally, in this moment and with Vergil at his back and his cock inside of him again, is slowly beginning to fill.

“Missed you,” Dante gasps into his arms and Vergil just growls back, low and soft and possessive. His teeth find the back of Dante’s shoulder and sink in as he begins to move, slow at first, but steadily increasing with his need and the panting of his breath against Dante’s back, and oh, _fuck_ , it feels so good, the pleasure and the pain a heady blend of everything he didn’t want to admit he needed and more. He fumbles one arm out from beneath himself and wraps his fingers around his cock, stroking himself in time with Vergil’s thrusts.

Vergil shifts his angle as he slowly pulls back before thrusting back in, striking that spot inside of Dante that sets his nerves on fire, and he comes, body quivering with his orgasm and Vergil’s name a mantra on his lips. Vergil reaches beneath him and holds Dante’s hand in his own, stroking his cock with him through his orgasm, pulling every moan and whine of his name out of Dante’s lips until he’s shuddering and clinging to the desk for support.

Vergil presses small kisses to the arch of Dante’s shoulders, holding him close and giving him room to breathe even though he has yet to reach completion himself. Dante wiggles his hips back against his twin and Vergil twitches forward in response with a low groan. He takes the signal as permission, and he pulls Dante against his chest and resumes his brutal pace, seeking out his own climax buried deep inside of his brother. When he comes it’s with a growl that shakes Dante down to the bone, teeth and claws sunk into his back and chest and hip.

He’s too tired to put on much of a show for Vergil, but he moans more than he probably needs to, relishes in the way his whines seem to only increase the fever pitch of Vergil’s own cries of pleasure. Finally spent, he collapses against Dante’s back, forehead pressed to his shoulder and hand running in a small, soothing circle against Dante’s belly. They linger this way for a few moments, basking in the glow of their passion, before Vergil’s cock has gone soft inside of him and Dante’s legs begin to go numb.

“Carry me to bed,” Dante says as Vergil pulls out of him; without his twin’s support, he flops on the desk uselessly, bones temporarily turned to jelly and lower back burning from the awkward angle. Vergil huffs a laugh, and Dante suspects that he’s just going to leave him here to deal with the mess himself; he’s pleasantly surprised when Vergil takes his shoulders and rolls him onto his back before pulling him up against his chest, arms looped around his back and waist in a warm hug.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Vergil chides him, pressing gentle kisses to the side of his neck and chin. He allows himself a moment to simply stand there in his twin’s embrace, catching his breath and regaining his composure, before the sticky residue of their lovemaking is too much for him to bear and he pulls away, leaving a fleeting kiss on Vergil’s lips as he does.

“Fine, but you’re cleaning the desk,” Dante says, stretching languidly to relieve the pressure in his lower back, pleased when the arch of his naked chest and arms draws Vergil’s attention inevitably back to him. He slips away from him even as he reaches for his hips again, laughs when he’s rewarded with an annoyed huff. His clothing is scattered through the lobby and he grabs his pants and shirt on his way up the stairs to clean himself up, basking in the hum of contentment that buzzes beneath his skin.

He’s going to become spoiled at this rate, with Vergil acting the way he is. Possessive and needy, yes, but isn’t that exactly what Dante’s always wanted? Proof that his brother needs him as much as he needs Vergil? The reality of it makes his chest ache, but for once it isn’t with emptiness--Vergil is _home_ , in his life and in his arms, and that’s all he could’ve ever asked for, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Golly this was long, even after splitting it in half. Whoops.
> 
> And with that, my friends, I think I am done with this series. I've exhausted what scenes I had already planned and feel pretty good that I've left these boys off on the happy path to living a (what is for them) normal life together (and I've hopefully delivered on the porn I promised lol). I have other fics planned that I'll be sharing in the near future, so do keep an eye out for those! These two idiots refuse to leave me alone, it seems.


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